Britain reigns supreme in stellar weekend of boxing

When the bad news broke on Saturday morning that David Haye had been forced to withdraw from his fight with Tyson Fury, British boxing needed a bit of good publicity.

What better way than to see some good action inside the ring? Did we get it? Yes we did, from two separate televised events.

First of all Frank Warren's first show from the Copper Box Arena in London had three of his headline fighter's all partaking in good contests.

There was Dereck "Del Boy" Chisora (18-4, 12KO's), who took on German-based Kazakhstani Edmund Gerber (23-2, 14KO's) and dominated pretty much throughout and stopped his man in the fifth round.

Chisora weighed in at 237lbs which is the lightest he has ever been in his career and he looked really good for it. His punches looked fast and powerful and his strength was just too much for Gerber.

Edmund Gerber did enjoy a little success in the fourth round when he connected with a very hard right hand counter to Chisora's jaw, which made the Londoner get up on his toes and move around for about a minute before he came back at Gerber towards the end of the round, putting hard combinations together.

Chisora then took the fight to his opponent in the fifth round and forced referee Guido Cavalleri to call a halt the bout with five seconds remaining in the round and ultimately winning Chisora the European Heavyweight title.

In another bout from that card, Billy Joe Saunders (19-0, 10KO's) defeated previously unbeaten John Ryder (15-1, 9KO's) via a close but unanimous decision to retain his British and Commonwealth Middleweight titles.

It was a good matchup between the two unbeaten hopefuls and I scored the bout 115-113 in favour of Saunders meaning in gave Saunders seven rounds and Ryder five.

Ryder was behind going into the final round and he seemed as though he knew it because he really came out and gave it his all, landing good hard shots on Saunders and really trying to stop the traveller who resides on an encampment in Hatfield, Hertfordshire.

It was a valiant effort from John Ryder but it was too little too late as two of the judges scored the fight the same as I did 115-113 to Saunders, whilst the other judge had a score of 115-114 in favour of Saunders.

The least memorable bout of the evening came from the Frankie Gavin (17-0, 12KO's) and David Barnes (27-3-2, 11KO's) fight as Gavin won a comfortable fight by scores of 118-111, 118-112 and 117-112, countering Barnes all night but lacking the power to get his opponent out of the fight and seemingly settling for a points win in the end to retain his British and Commonwealth Welterweight titles.

There was a standout performer on the undercard as Frank Buglioni (10-0, 7KO's) stopped his opponent Bronislav Kubin (16-12-1, 9KO's) with a good right hand that floored Kubin and although he did make it to his feet referee Phil Edwards rightly called it off with Kubin in no fit state to continue.

Over to the Olympia in Liverpool now where local lad "Dirty" Derry Matthews (35-8-2, 19 KO's) scored a stunning TKO victory over former footballer Curtis Woodhouse (19-6, 13KO's) in the 4th round of an action packed fight.

Woodhouse gave it his all and at times seemed to hurt Matthews with body shots, but it seemed clear from the start that Derry just had too much skill and experience for Woodhouse and in the fourth round he landed a hard right hand to the head of Woodhouse dropping the former Sheffield United and Birmingham City man, who despite getting back to his feet, was clearly in no state to continue fighting, prompting the referee to stop the bout meaning Matthews retained his Cmmonwealth lightweight title.

Speaking to Sky Sports after the fight, Matthews stated his desire to fight Ricky Burns for the WBO lightweight world title and seemed a little frustrated that his former foe Anthony Crolla who Matthews holds a win and a draw against seemed to be about to land that fight ahead of him.

Curtis Woodhouse made national news in March when he chased down a "Twitter Troll" who had been using the social networking site to abuse the man from Driffield, Yorkshire.

Woodhouse was very humble in defeat admitting the better man won on the night whilst being interviewed by Sky Sports in his dressing room once he had cleared his head.

After the Haye announcement British Boxing deserved a good night of action and it got just that from both televised events.

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DISCLAIMER

This article has been written by a member of the GiveMeSport Writing Academy and does not represent the views of
GiveMeSport.com or SportsNewMedia. The views and opinions expressed are solely that of the author credited at the top of this article.
GiveMeSport.com and SportsNewMedia do not take any responsibility for the content of its contributors.

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